Hunter Biden's memoir, just out, arrived today and I read it in one sitting. Haven't done that in ages.
Normally it's a race to see what gives out first, the eyes or the sitzfleish. But this was too compelling to put down.
Until Joe Biden was elected president, I showed only passing interest in the Biden family. I was a strong Bernie supporter and joined those who felt Biden was too bourgeois, too much of a business-as-usual candidate to fix what ails this country - the dumbed down electorate, the colossal inequity that stems from our history of racism and segregation, brought to a new level of awareness by the 45th president and his appeal to white supremacists. But since he has assumed office, I've become a convert. I think he and Kamala Harris are on the right track, and have given us reason to hope again that maybe surrendering to despair was not the only way to go.
If you're wondering how I could start a review of Hunter's book with an assessment of his father, let me ask you - isn't it obvious? Nothing Hunter might say or do can be separated from the fact that he's the president's son. Trump and his thuggish henchmen, Giuliani and the Alt Right thought they had struck gold when they discovered that Hunter was earning $50,000 a month working for a Ukrainian power company, and they thought they had uncovered a political goldmine.
So far, that story has been a dud. Try as they might, the conspiracy mongers on the right have failed to turn up any dirt. There was a downside to his whopping big salary, though, according to Hunter. It enabled him to afford a very expensive drug habit. The book is a blow-by-blow account of Hunter's descent into addiction and depravity.
You can read Hunter's story through the eyes of a scold, who believes that exposing such weakness and such dirt can only soil the reputation of Joe Biden. Or you can view it as an American tragedy, through the more sympathetic eyes of somebody aware of the extent of America's drug problem. I read it the way I think Hunter hopes most people will read it, as a warning to anyone who might be susceptible to addictions. It's a serious cautionary tale. You hear people say you have to hit bottom before you can expect to escape addiction. Hunter makes the case that for many the bottom is death; the problem is actually much worse than most are inclined to believe.
Hunter lost his mother and a sister in a car accident. He and his brother Beau were spared and the loss brought the already close brothers - only a year an a day apart in age - even closer. That Beau should develop brain cancer in his 40s should strike you as the cruelest twist of fate, and it's no surprise that such loss and fear that disaster could strike again could lead to despair and a "why bother to care about anything?" attitude.
Hunter describes his family as fiercely close and loving people - starting with his father - who bounce back from anything, and he readily admits that others have experienced much worse. How one responds to catastrophe seems to be as much a function of psychological disposition as experience with hard times. He makes no excuses for himself.
What comes through is a family dynamic which includes an unusual ability to express love and affection. The Bidens cry easily and openly. They are there for each other.
Hunter started with alcohol and moved at some point to crack cocaine. Seventy times he tried to escape his addictions and seventy times he failed. What saved him, he tells us, is a dea ex machina, a South African filmmaker named Melissa, whom he met and married a couple weeks later. The tale is a little hard to take seriously, but by the time you reach the end of the book - and the happy ending - you're worn thin by the endless relapses and begging for relief.
The cynic in me says this is all a bit much to be expected to believe. But although it's stranger than fiction, there seems to be no shortage of folks around ready to corroborate the story. So maybe it's all true. Nice Irish Catholic boy meets Jewish divorcee and has "shalom" tatooed on his arm to match hers, and she succeeds where 70 odd institutions have failed.
Could happen.
Beautiful prose. Hunter writes convincingly and powerfully.
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